


Watcher, Warder, and other fools

by srkya



Category: Sorcery of Thorns - Margaret Rogerson
Genre: Ace!Katrien, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Has art, M/M, Magic, Worldbuilding, also katrien is ace, anyways its gonna be more drama action fighting, basically i was like "warders are cool" "lets make elisabeth a warder idgaf", do you KNOW there is no summary for this book or character pages, gayer rewrite, im so sorry, might do polyship might not idk rn, more dimension bullshit, rogerson had like 1 line about it and im going with it lmao, the ending of the book was way too much FMA vibes... if you know you know, warders, when you force a poor ao3 employee to make the tag for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srkya/pseuds/srkya
Summary: Elisabeth loses most of her sight in an accident when she was little and has lived in the library since.Actually I didn't remember she wanted to be a warden in the book except when I reread the book summary. o-oAnyways another warder-to-be arrives from another library and subsequently disappears with one of the most dangerous books in the library.With the director out of commission, Elisabeth needs to apprehend her friend herself to prevent the director from taking the blame and try to unearth the deeper machinations behind even more incidents of magical destruction.
Relationships: Katrien Quillworthy/Elisabeth Scrivener, Nathaniel Thorn/Silas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Morning fell unseen on her skin, warming at its touch. Elisabeth lifted her arm from where it had fallen asleep draped over the edge of her bed and rubbed at her eyes that were more sore than usual in the drier months of the year. Pushing herself up on her bed, she brushed her long hair with even strokes with her fingers before quickly braiding it and winding it around her head, tight but not enough to start one of her headaches. Absent-minded, she combed at her bangs where they rested from her forehead to the bridge of her nose, covering her eyes and the ridged scars lacing around her orbital bone. With the last button on her usual dress and light coat, she brushed down the rough fabric that rasped at her palms and adjusted her sleeves to flat before opening her door and striding down the hallway that all the apprentices resided in, footsteps echoing from her boots in a steady rhythm. It was still a quiet morning: the promise of visitors had started a frantic cleaning the previous night, and all the others were likely still sleeping in to compensate. Through the doors, she could not hear any whisper of their snores.

She had a specific assignment today, after all. The director of the library had finally entrusted her with the library’s more dangerously ranked books, and some of them became  _ whiny _ when you did things out of schedule, enough that she could hear them from behind the gates on her regular rounds. They hadn’t learned their manners from real children either- she well knew she was the only child wandering around in the library since she’d lived there(Which was nearly her entire life). 

And book-tantrums when the library had important visitors were not good for their funding.

By the time she had reached the main atrium, the director, with her eternally calm and low voice, familiar and strong, greeted her from the desk. The chair scraped on the floor and the director rustled some papers before she got up, walking to meet Elisabeth rather than the other way around.

In front of the desk, after all, were chairs that were never in the same place twice. Elisabeth had stubbed her toe or tripped too many times to count when she had gotten too cocky around chairs when they had already been rearranged by other people.

From the whisper of her clothes and her nearby sigh, the director was standing before her. She was prepared for the warm, small hand that reached out and comfortably rested on her elbow.

“Ready?” she asked in tired tones that meant the director likely hadn’t slept much if at all, the night before. Elisabeth nodded in agreement and they both made their way to the most important internal gate in the library- the one guarding the class of books from level seven to ten. As she passed the bookshelves, the grimoires whispered to her in their harmonious and discordant tones, cajoling her for attention and sulking when she walked away. Their spines glittered as she passed with a halo of hazy light, chased away when she looked directly at them but iridescent in colors she could not name. 

The reflected fragments of light cast the director in strange shadows, and Elisabeth could catch glimpses of her colorless hair that fell loose to her waist in straight strands and the severe uniform of the warders. It belied her gentle demeanor and voice, though she knew the other apprentices had long learned not to take her lightly.

They arrived at the gate, marked by the fact it was somehow backlit by the room locked behind it even though Elisabeth was supposedly blind. The director handed her a key that she had used once or twice before and waited for Elisabeth to feel for the lock and open it. Stepping in, they both promptly locked the room from the inside before stepping up to the dais, where a book rested surrounded by it’s chattering brethren, voices indistinguishable in the crowd lining the walls like some crawling vine of hazy lamps. 

The Director’s boots rang against the hardwood floor as she approached the center of the room, where a book surrounded by glowing wards anchored into the podium it rested on.

“The Book of Eyes contains powerful mind magic,” the Director said, standing across the raised platform and whose eyes stared straight into Elisabeth’s, expecting.

“ _ Don’t you want a taste, too, apprentice?”  _ the book whispered to Elisabeth in its husky tones, “ _ Tear the world apart with its own churning thoughts. Fitting, isn’t it? For such conflicting minds…I want to show you the world in mourning-” _

Elisabeth just sighed, too used to ignoring what the books tried to say to her.

“That it does,” she finally replied to the director, “How does a warder guard against mind magic? We are not exactly built for...mental combat.”

“You have to realize you’ve been influenced by it,” the director said, “which is why knowing this book exists is the greatest weapon against it. How can you defend against something you do not understand or know exists?”

“Even if I understood, How would I be able to protect myself against such a thing?” Elisabeth asked, dubious. After all, her mind already was prone to daydreaming and the whispering of the Grimoires who were already barely grounded in reality. How could she know what was a lie when she herself did not know the same truth as other people?

“But, nonetheless, you are better equipped. It's also why I’ve tasked you with this book- you are the least afraid. And fear leads to illusions that bite more than they should.”

“It is difficult to fear things that act more like temperamental cats than demonic constructs,” Elisabeth said wryly ,”And if they choose to tear my mind apart- What could I have done? There is no room left for me to abandon my role here, anymore. I’ve grown too fond of this place.”

The director paused for a long moment before patting the side of her head.

“Don’t be so determined about your fate just yet,” she scolded, “Though it makes me happy that you would consider this place home. 

_ “Yes, stay, don’t leave, dear apprentice,” _ the book crooned, pages rustling and the smell of ozone and other sharpening as if whatever being fueled the magic of the book was more present than she had ever encountered before,  _ “We are the only ones who will protect your lovely eyes, your lovely hands, your lovely tongue...Let us protect you in lovely dreams...” _

Both the director and Elisabeth sighed in mild exasperation and the book stopped its dance of pages, sulking. 

“Are you ready?” the director asked, voice colored in amusement. The woman took out what Elisabeth knew were the Warder’s own brand of nullifying the threat of magic, sigils written on paper that were enchanted by the magic

After carefully inspecting the runes etched onto the podium with what was written on the pages, the director pressed her fingers to them to make sure they were still of the same power, and that the iron surrounding the book wasn’t cracked.

“It doesn’t completely block the book’s magic,” the director finally said after the crackle of burned air from the re-energized wards faded enough that breathing didn’t tickle her impulse to cough, “That would be akin to suffocation. We leave enough that it still plays tricks, but harmless ones.”

“Pranks rather than mass destruction?” Elisabeth said, “Oh, but the grimoires still complain incessantly about how they miss flying about and creating havoc.”

_ “It’s fun!”  _ the book of eyes hissed sleepily _ ,”See the humans run, see them make fools of themselves.” _ ”

They both ignored the rumblings of a tired book and started working on the rest of the wards in the room, rebinding them onto the shelves and carefully checking that no book was getting more violent than usual to it’s neighbors.

Honestly, putting so many volatile books next to each other was great for finding and checking the wards, but really seemed like a recipe for disaster.

She sighed as she brushed her fingers on the spine of a book, resulting in a strange purr of a vibration. Nothing bad had happened in years. The director knew what she was doing, after all.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Elisabeth went down for breakfast, the smell of food hit her in the face as she opened the door to the great dining room. The cacophony of murmured voices washed over her and she inwardly resented that she had come so late that she was hesitant to even step in the room lest she bumped into someone and cause a mess. She hated those stumbling messes, and they often ended with her on the ground or bumping into some other unseen object with a few more bruises to add to her collection. Here in the dining room, where the strange glow from the books could not help her determine her position, she felt as if she were standing at a great cliff with either side a precipice. And yet, with a confidence she didn’t feel, she stepped into the room and carefully made her way to her usual place. By a combination of skill and practice she made it to her usual chair , finding it a bit to the right of it’s usual place when he foot came into contact with it. She kept it pushed in as far as possible whenever she left, though whoever was in charge of cleaning that week might not put it back where she did. Putting her hand on the back of the chair, she pulled it out and sat, readjusting the way her dress fell around her legs before she picked up her utensils and started on the food always pre-distributed into their wooden bowl.

The ambient sound climbed again as the other apprentices stopped paying attention to her and started chatting again, the noise creating a white background for her to enjoy her thoughts and food alone. She let the taste of toast and butter linger on her tongue as she worked through her meal methodically, taking long pauses just to ruminate in the atmosphere and enjoy the liveliness of the other apprentices, most a few years younger than her.

As she carefully sipped her steaming mint tea in an attempt to warm the slight ache in her eyes, the volume in the room dropped again as the heavy, squeaking doors opened again. Elisabeth pointed her attention in that direction, wondering if the director had finally decided to join them after she had left earlier for “important, director-only duties”. A rough, humorous voice cut through the absence of sound.

“Well, isn’t this a lovely welcome,” the unknown woman’s voice came out in a whisper, the same level as many of the grimoires but untouched by the unreality of their tone, “It’s nice to meet you too.” 

The director exhaled as if retaining a laugh and introduced the woman as Katrien before leading her across the room to the chairs next to Elisabeth, which were usually empty. Elisabeth nodded in their general direction before setting down her tea in the same spot it always was and greeted them properly.

“Yes,” Katrien purred, “It’s nice to meet you when the director is always bragging about how marvelous you are.”

The director sputtered in protest as Elisabeth felt her entire face heat up. Pushing through her internal writhing, Elisabeth replied, eloquently. 

“Ah.”

A strangely muted cackle of a laugh erupted out of Katrien before she said, laugh stuck in her throat, “Like mother, like daughter I say. You’re so easy to tease.”

Elisabeth’s brain stuttered to a halt and she just sat there with her mouth slightly open until her mind decided to restart.

“Yes,” she said voice completely devoid of inflection, “The director. Is definitely, my mother.”

Though she’d pretty much been raised by said director since she was too young to really remember, she’d only wistfully and jokingly called the director her mother in her head. Well, no time like the present to randomly spring this on the woman. 

This only started another round of hoarse cackles from the woman sitting next to her. Voice strangled, the director said rather petulantly, “Alright, alright! Elisabeth, you know how it’s nearly the season of training new warders? Katrien is one of the new recruits, from one of the rural libraries who don’t have enough funds to train their own people. Please take care of her while she’s here.”

A rural library? After the great war, the council had decided to split the power contained by the grimoires into fragments maintained by a great libraries within the country. Every book was a mere part of a whole, so that their power if they ever escaped would be more manageable. It also annoyed magicians who wanted to learn their secrets(which was always a bonus), forcing them to spend more time to acquire more dangerous secrets. After all, sorcerers may not have been the ones to start the war but they were certainly the ones that ended it, regardless of how much blood was shed. 

Well, at least that was what the grimoires had said. Who knew if they were lying? Elisabeth, however, decided that it must contain some fragment of a truth since the other apprentices were of the opinion that sorcerers were vile and immoral,etc.

“Right!” the director clasped her hands together, “Elisabeth, I’ve recommended you for Warder training as well, so you two will definitely be seeing a lot of each other. That is, if you still want to join.”

Elisabeth’s blood froze but she shoved it all down. 

”Of course, director.”

She pulled up the corners of her mouth and tried to relax by holding in her breath and releasing it as slow as she could manage. It wasn’t that she didn't feel a rush of excitement at the thought, but it was accompanied by a sort of ineffable dread as well.

“Oh! That’s great!” Katrien’s hand was on her shoulder as if to reassure her, “We can suffer together and form unbreakable bonds! Stabbing demonic constructs squad!”

Elisabeth snorted and coughed at her ridiculous behavior, giving an opportunity for Katrien to smack her back a few times. Once she had recovered enough to scowl at Katrien’s over enthusiastic smacks the hand withdrew. Really, snarling was the only way to communicate with some of the other apprentices when they were being  _ too clingy and hovery _ . 

However, Katrien unaffectedly continued making conversation with her as if it were common for her to chat with grumpy, insociable beasts, trying to ply her with more food under the excuse that training would suck them dry of energy. Elisabeth reluctantly chewed on the extra boiled egg that Katrien had annoyed her to eat. 

“Wow, you sure mastered how to chew spitefully,” Katrien said, “That's quite the skill, especially since I can’t see your eyes through your bangs.”

“Please don’t take Elisabeth as an example,” the director groaned, “...except maybe how she presents herself. Please don’t show up to training with that ridiculous coat.”

“But I think it makes me look quite dashing” Katrien said with unholy glee, “do you know how long it took me to gather this many feathers? Elisabeth, you think it’s a piece of art too, right?”

“I have never,” Elisabeth said, after finally finishing the egg, “been in the same room as such an atrocious jacket. I can  _ smell _ it from here.”

Katrien sniffed her jacket.

“It only smells like feathers and leather.”

‘Yes.”

“It’s not a bad smell.”

Elisabeth leaned her chin on her hand and took a sip of her tea.

“Ok, fine, you didn’t say it was a bad smell. I wouldn’t have worn it anyways, wouldn’t want to ruin it. But don't you worry: I have even  _ better _ jackets.

The director let out a strangled groan before addressing Elisabeth.

“Come up to my office, later. I have to give you your Warder robes among other things.”

Elisabeth nodded and the director left with a sweep of her robes. There was only a short pause before Katrien said rather smugly, “You know, instead of the director raising you, are you sure you weren’t raised by a den of foxes?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen a fox,” Elisabeth said, “Maybe the director’s been one this entire time.”

“It’s the orangey-brown hair,” Katrien confided, “and snarling. I think there are some white haired foxes in the north though, so you might be right.”

Elisabeth agreed with a quirk of her mouth. She thought she caught the edge of a flash of teeth in Katrien’s grin.

“So,” Katrien mock- drawled, “Why do you want to be a Warder anyways? There are safer things to do other than fighting magical monsters. Like taking care of the library.” 

After Elisabeth wiped her mouth with her napkin, she pressed her knuckle against her lips.

“The director became a warder when I was young. I’ve always… admired her strength,” she said. Katrien let out a huff of breath. 

Elisaveth took a chance and managed to smack Katrien on the head, getting a brush of her short hair. Absently, she replied while impolitely groping at the rest of her head of hair, “Just wait until you piss her off enough. She’s quite vicious. Very fox-like.”

“Uh,” Katrien said eloquently, though she was taking getting her hair messed up quite in stride. Elisabeth would stab anyone that tried to mess with her hair, “What are you doing?”

“I can’t tell what you look like unless you let me analyse your head with my hands,” Elisabeth said, “Let me touch your face so I can hallucinate it better.”

She turned Katrien’s head towards her and started unceremoniously feeling up her face, She’d only ever done such a thing to the director before: none of the other apprentices were close enough for her to be curious. She ran her thumb up Katrien’s pointed chin to her eye sockets, where the edges of her short hair brushed her sparse eyebrows and whose flatter nose led to thin lips. The face was unusually warm compared to the director’s or her own hands. She touched her own cheek to make sure.

“Are you alright?” Elisabeth asked, “You might be running a fever. Your face is hot.”

“Wh-wh ah, Maybe, “ Katrien uncharacteristically stuttered, “The journey here was… long.. Yeah. Um..” Her barely-there rough voice had inexplicably increased in pitch. 

“Drink some tea, then.” Elisabeth reached for where she knew the tea pot was and refilled her cup. Katrien’s rough yet slim fingers brushed hers as she received it, and she took a sip. The hot water didn’t seem to help her throat.

“You must be sick,” Elisabeth realized, “Your voice has been hoarse this entire time.”

“Oh, no, it’s just how it is. An accident with a grimoire. I can’t speak much louder than a whisper, which gets a bit painful. Are your eyes the same?”

“Yes, an accident. “ She hand waved it since it wasn’t that important, “I don’t really remember.”

“Don’t remember? Must have been bad. Although at this rate you’re going to give me head trauma as well.” There was a hint of mirth in Katrien again, seemingly recovered from getting her face touched and heaf smacked.

Elisabeth snorted again and muttered, “Head trauma. Right. I’ll give you something to be traumatized about.”

“You mean you haven’t already? I’m going to have nightmares about how you chewed up that egg. What did it ever do to you?”

“You touched it,” Elisabeth drawled, “I was putting it out of its misery.”

Katrien made a mock offended sound before sliding her chair back from the table and getting up and putting a hand on Elisabeth’s shoulder again.

“Are you gonna put yourself out of your misery?” 

Elisabeth bared her teeth in a snarl and Katrien’s strange husky laugh followed her out with a careless “Gonna go unpack! I’ll see you later, Elisabeth!”

Who spoke so informally these days? Really, Katrien likely wouldn’t know manners if it hit her in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I know this fandom is tiny tiny tiny tiny but I'm just having fun with Canon since the world is pretty interesting. 
> 
> Feel free to comment beta-type feedbacks since none of my writer friends even know what this book is lmao. I edit it anyways but sometimes brain empty.
> 
> I have a few plot twists planned, so if you stick around, thanks! I'm going to be surprised it anyone reads this lmao. Ah well. 
> 
> Also Katrien is ace and I am ace so I was like *__****** ! (well, from what she said. idk if she ace or aro or just sex-repulsed but its ok. any is fine and valid)
> 
> Also Im not giving any hate to the other pairings (Elis/Nat, Silas, w/e) its all chill! 
> 
> I wish so much that this thing had a summary and character pages.. plz... internet organize people.. 
> 
> anyways canon... will appear maybe. I dont remember the bad guys name right now. ash..?


	2. Chapter 2

Elisabeth knocked softly on the entrance to the director’s office, a door behind the desk of the main atrium for when the woman wanted to work in peace and quiet. At her soft greeting, Elisabeth opened the heavy oaken door and made her way to the desk, where she sat down with a comfort born from habit. She waited. The director was still shuffling papers around and rearranging her desk from its inevitably precarious mess- the amount of paperwork she had to do Elisabeth did not envy in the slightest. She could see the piles of tomes glinting with their embellishments on her desk and in the bookshelves surrounding the director’s heavy desk, some bound in chains in iron cages. 

After a soft sigh, the director stretched out her back and got up before addressing Elisabeth.

“I have something for you.”

She opened a panel at the back of the room with a soft click and took out something wrapped in cloth. Pressed into her hands, she could feel the delicate threads embroidering the cloth, stiff on the soft, well-worn fabric. As she shifted the long object and felt its shape, she found the opening of the cloth wrap and took out a delicate iron cane that was wrought with vines and roses and with a smooth, straight handle.

“This is…?” Elisabeth asked, uncertain. She’d never needed a cane before, although the object was too thin for one.

“Unlatch the handle and pull on it.”

Elisabeth found the clasp between the smooth handle and the body of the cane and flicked it open with her thumb. With the sound of sliding metal, she pulled the handle away from the sheath. Her eyebrows raised toward her forehead.

“A sword?” she murmured, running the pad of her thumb lightly over the edge after she had set the sheath down on her lap, “You’re too kind to me, director.”

She stroked the inset rose on the rim of the handle and cautiously put it back into its cane sheath. The room was much too small to swing such a long sword around. 

“I was just worried it would be too heavy,” the director said, “Long swords are generally hard to use, so the blade isn’t as thick as our swords usually are. It’s more of a fencing sword than a rapier.”

“You… commissioned this for me?” Elisabeth asked incredulously, “That’s too much! I don’t deserve such a thing.”

The director let out a sigh that was half a laugh.

“It’s an heirloom. There’s no need to cause a fuss. Take care of it for me, would you?”

Affectionately, the director placed her hands on top of Elisabeth’s where they were clutching the cane- sword.

“But, fighting when my sight is so unpredictable,” she began, “I don’t know- if I can.”

The director paused at that, obviously mulling over it. It couldn’t be that she hadn’t considered that before- that was not how the director worked. 

“It will be difficult,” the director replied curtly, “But you’ve always found your way. I have no doubts that you’ll thrive through your own sheer stubbornness.”

Though she did get through daily life without any trouble anymore, how many stubbed toes, how many falls, how much humiliation it took to get there still made her want to shove all the things she’d fallen into out the window and smash them.

“Patience, Elisabeth.” The director said, amused, “You’ve no lack of effort. Unfortunately, it will just be harder for anyone else to help you.”

Elisabeth was not patient, but she gripped the sword with determined hands, stowing it under her arm.

“Then, the uniform?”

“Ah, yes.” The director rustled through a box before pulling out an apprentice uniform- a much less formal version of the director’s own uniform. 

“Right, one more thing,” the woman said as Elisabeth got up to leave. “I anticipate I’ll be called to the capital on some errand soon- I worry it might coincide with the arrival of our guest.”

“I’ll take care of it as you have taught me to,” Elisabeth agreed neutrally, “Is there something else you need to teach me before you leave?”

“There’s time yet. Let me think about it,” she said, “I need to go over the lists of the Warders living nearby…” 

After she had been excused, she walked down the hallways with the cane-the sword tucked into her side so that it would not bump into the tables and chairs and knock something over. She had also been given some sort of belt to lash it too, but the sword’s length still swung enough to make her not want to do that quite yet. Around her, she heard the cadence of a familiar voice and followed it to a dark corner of the library. A book, unusually decorated with only a soft suede-like cover that brushed her fingers and departed a lingering warmth. 

“ _ Elissaabethhh, how are thou? You carry a blight to our souls, a ripper, a cleaver. Why are you so tumultuous? You carry a beast of rendering. _ ”

“Nice to see you too, grimoire of crimson.”

It was a level 3 book, not nearly as dangerous as a level 5 but not allowed to the general public. As far as she could tell, it was some sort of overly bloody history book. It loved to whisper to her stories of carnage and of heroes and of sacrifices… Perhaps it was why that even as a child, her sense of squeamishness had already died an early death.

The book made displeased hissing sounds until she picked it up from its stand and stroked its cover with the back of her hand.

“Do you think I can learn to wield a sword?” she muttered to the grimoire.

“ _ The cold, cold queen of Naanthar cut off all their heads, for daring to look upon her clothes- A tiger in a bird’s draperies and the eyes of a hawk. _ ”

“You realize I don’t have hawk eyes?” she said wryly.

“ _ Eyes that gleam of loveless steel _ ,” the book sighed, “ _ so lovely, she was _ .”

“Talking to books, are we?” a low voice came from behind her. Elisabeth turned to face Katrien, still holding the book in a loose cradle. 

“You have a problem?” 

“Not at all.”

Elisabeth paused at that, considering Katrien but unable to draw any conclusions. 

“What are you doing here then?” she decided to say.

“Ah,” Katrien sounded embarrassed, “I think I might be a little lost when I heard your voice. Could you, perhaps, help…?”

Belatedly she realized that she had not given the library tour she had promised. 

“My apologies. Would you want me to show you around?”

A low chuckle filled the corridor of books, “If you have the time. I think the book is becoming rather irritable without your full attention, personally.”

Indeed the book had started murmuring in a petulant tone.

“It will be fine,” she said, stroking the cover and soothing it, “This is one of the back halls where the less frequently books are. Usually, they’re history books or books that are so old people have mostly forgotten that they exist..” she trailed off, brushing her hand on the leather-wrapped spines that lined the walls, worn covers whispering soothingly to her ears. “This entire area is sorted the same as the rest of the library, but separately since we don’t want them to be damaged.”

Katrien made a noise of understanding and Elisabeth heard her booted ringing walk against the wooden floors as she followed Elisabeth, winding around the maze of bookshelves. 

“How on earth can you know where to go?” Katrien murmured behind her, “You’ve shown me so many corridors I’m only more lost than before.”

Elisabeth paused. Years and years of repetition could educate anyone on the layout of the library. It wasn’t as big as the Grand Library in central, after all, which was known to be five stories tall and as large as a palace. 

Not that she knew what a palace even looked like, but that was beside the point.

“You just need time,” she said rather curtly, ”the areas also feel much different from each other. This area is filled with grumpy grandfathers and mothers. They won't try to bite you.”

“Bite? Sage, they’re feral, aren’t they.”

Elisabeth smiled and stopped in front of the gate to the restricted section where the atmosphere was distinctly much tenser due to the Grimoire’s badly suppressed emotion.

“Here, the books constantly throw fits since they feel so restless. Being caged does that-and we only cage those that are dangerous. Thus, this is a restricted section.”

Elisabeth brushed what books she could reach through the bars of wrought iron gates, quieting it for a moment. She could taste the smell of ethereal combustion even from behind their containment, a sort of burnt air on her tongue.

Katrien replied, a bit distantly, “Yes... I suppose being caged would...annoy the books.”

“It’s better to avoid this area if it unsettles you. Some try to get into your head, some just lie, some try to seduce you...even though they’re books.”

After that, they fell strangely silent but Elisabeth only gave it a moment before twisting on her heel and marching toward the lower levels.

“You remember going up the stairs at least?” she asked, “Though you would have had no reason to unless you were  _ trying _ to get lost.”

“A-ah-that- I was just curious! Was I not supposed to?”

“Hmmm ...I've no clue,” Elisabeth said, trying to reassure her. “Just don’t agitate any of the books here... They tend to be techy even if the majority of them outside of the restricted section are non-volatile.”

“Volatile, huh,” Katrien said, amused, “You mean ‘will attempt to murder you’?”

Elisabeth snorted. “If they try to murder you, it will be your own fault, Katrien.”

Katrien rolled her eyes.

“Only you would be on the grimoire’s side even as a warden. The world must be ending.”

“Yes, I will absolutely use my magic powers to attack all the other wardens that look at books the wrong way,” Elisabeth replied. “That sounds like a good way to improve my warden career, don’t you think?”

Katrien laughed in that strange soft way and they continued on. After she had shown the general library area and the apprentice’s living quarters as well as the training fields, both ended up standing outside where the afternoon breeze was just picking up with the scent of flowers.

“I’ve been meaning to ask-” Katrien began. “What’s that beauty of a sword you’ve got at your hip now?”

Elisabeth felt her hackles rise in self-consciousness but held her sword in her hands to let Katrien have a closer look. The metal of the roses bit into her hands as Kartien ooh-ed over the metal reverently, though she didn’t touch it.

“That’s got to be heavy though. How on earth… Are you hiding muscles under that blouse?”

“No. I suppose I'll have to obtain those muscles.“

Katrien made a noise of sympathetic agreement and muttered. “Honestly, just holding that long ass sword for hours might be enough work out in by itself… Hey, you know any sword forms? You are favored by the Director, after all, the famed Winter Warder.”

“...Not yet. Do you?”

“Ah, that's a shame. I would have liked to see that.”

Elisabeth felt herself flushing from thee attention and mentally smacked herself. There was no use getting worked up over someone having a good opinion of her skills, really. She didn’t even have said skills.

The book she had forgotten she had taken with her, tucked under her arm, cackled gleefully, “ _ The conductor and its song _ .”

“-Won’t you show me a good swing?” Katrien said with a smile in her voice, “I want to see how ridiculous it looks.”

“I won’t if you say it looks ridiculous”

“Nooo, I meant ridiculous as in ridiculously cool. I want a stupid crazy sword now. Who do I have to bribe to get one?”

Elisabeth paused and shook her head. “I’ve no idea where one obtains a sword other than a blacksmith. Who makes demon-slaying swords anyways?”

“Some artisan who sends it to the magistrate to be enchanted to cut demonic flesh, sometimes. Which probably would cost me several organs worth of money.”

Katrien clasped her hands around Elisabeth’s hand, still wrapped loosely around the sword, and grinned with a flash of sharp teeth.

“Maybe another time you can show me how you fight with it.”

Yes, maybe sometimes indeed when she didn’t feel like an absolute bumbling fool.

Unexpectedly, Katrien let go of her hands and Elisabeth felt a hand brush something on the side of her head. She stiffened and stepped back where she promptly stumbled backward, bracing herself for the fall when a strong hand gripped her by the wrist and yanked her back to her feet. 

Elisabeth’s locked her jaw as she firmed up her stance against how casual she had started to become. She hadn’t tripped that badly for months-

“I’m sorry, I won’t do that again,” Katrien apologized from above her head, somewhere, “You- you have a leaf stuck on your head- but I'll ask next time.”

“It’s fine,” Elisabeth snapped, irritation leaking out of her voice and she righted her sleeves and coat, cursing her own overreaction. “You didn’t mean to. Just don’t do it again.” 

At this, she glared suspiciously through her bangs at the face she could only see the outline of through the reflection of the soft light of the library’s stones, illuminating the soft curve of her cheek. It didn’t make sense, why she could see parts of Katrien more than any other person, with or without the reflections from other things,

Elisabeth sighed, tired of anything and everything before mentally righting herself and trying to calm herself down, taking deep breaths and centering herself like how her director had taught her.

“Katrien,” she managed to say without bite to her voice, though Katrien still jumped as if surprised, “Would you let me look at your face, properly? I’m afraid what I did during breakfast was more of a joke.”

“Um, okay?” Katrien replied and paused. She probably didn’t know what Elisabeth was going to do.

Elisabeth slowly raised her gloved hand and approximated where Katrien’s voice was. Her hand brushed the edge of Katrien’s neck and she located the opposing side of her jaw with her other hand. The other woman was definitely shorter than her by half a head, hair cropped unusually short but still thick, and who had also noticeably frozen at the contact but didn’t protest.

“Is this alright?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s fine-Um, I just didn’t really realize that you were...not able to see to that extent-”

She could feel her jaw move as she spoke.

“What color is your hair?” she asked, “I can’t tell.”

“Black. You mean, you  _ can _ tell sometimes?”

“I figured out that the director’s hair is white since all the reflections off of it were so bright. Yours, I suppose it makes sense since your hair was black.”

Thankfully, Katrien didn’t ask how she knew what colors were what. She wasn’t born blind, after all, and those questions grated on her just from their repetitiveness.

In the distance, the bell in the clocktower down the hill in the town rang, marking the hour as entering the third quarter of the day.

“Oh,” Katrien sighed, almost dismayed in the silence after. “The director wanted to talk to me around this time. Thank you for the tour.”

Elisabeth nodded back amicably and faced the edge of the grounds toward the town, wondering what the sky looked like right now.

At this hour, the other apprentices were well occupied in the library, sorting returned books and starting the clean up for the day. She was exempt because while the books were content telling her their life stories, they often refused to tell her their titles or creators which made sorting difficult. Cautiously, she tied the crimson grimoire to her waist where it was murmuring in a language she didn’t understand and drew the sword from her waist to let it rest on the ground in front of her. She lightly dragged it through the dirt until it hit the edge of the pathway and she lifted it so that it was level with her shoulders.

After a few seconds, her arm burned from the weight and she rested it over her shoulder, debating if she should try a swing. 

No, she couldn’t recklessly swing the thing. She would end up damaging some tree or fence she had not bothered to remember, and the director would be disappointed, sad, and too soft for the all trouble Elisabeth had already caused. So, with two hands gripping the sword, she slowly, slowly, swung it over her shoulder and diagonally until it lightly hit a tree and she stopped. The slowness burned her arms even brighter with unused strain. No matter how heavy the stacks of books were, it seemed that she was nowhere near strong enough. 

It rather felt like she was a child pretending to be a knight so she tied the sword back at her waist, and picked up the book again, intent on returning it to it’s home and finishing up her duties for the day.

“ _ Elise…beth... _ ” the book whispered to her. Her heart stopped, and she stared at the book who had pretty much said her  _ name _ \- she didn’t even know that grimoires had that level of memory and consciousness.

She touched it’s engraved decorations to make sure that yes, it was still the same book that rambled on and on about the wars with hardly a notice of its surroundings in an insane loop that never seemed to end in its victories and deaths, the same book that called her as a child to listen to its fables even though she was a child, still too scared to walk farther than in her safe corner.

“Crimson…?” she began, not knowing if it actually had a name.

“ _ Be careful, young warrior, the horns are calling you _ ,” it cackled and fell silent.

It didn’t make another sound on the entire journey to put it back where it belonged.

She really hoped that she hadn’t broken it. She rather liked that particular book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bleh bleh


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning air, Elisabeth stood in the courtyard that doubled as a training field, crisp wind unwillingly waking her up, the birds chirping up a storm despite the many awkward teenagers milling around with a faint aura of exhausted excitement. There were only about five other people, most of them coming from smaller provinces since not every place was large enough to have someone as esteemed as the director to instruct them.

A pair of unfamiliar footsteps approached her and Elisabeth refused to turn around, 

“Well, look who showed up,” one of the rural recruits said with a mocking tone, her voice vaguely familiar. “They let a blind idiot like you train to be a Warder? Are you sure your director didn’t just take pity on you and let you tag along to  _ play _ with the rest of us?”

Junice, the apprentice from the nearest small town, was always so very annoying. Like a fly that buzzed around her head.

“Right,” Elisabeth replied scathingly, “Who was the one running away from _this_ _idiot_ when you failed at trying to push me down the stairs and I retaliated? Pathetic.”

The girl made an angry, strangled high pitched noise and stepped farther in Elisabeth’s space.

“You- you absolute-”

A quiet laugh sounded behind her and Elisabeth jumped, neck prickling.

“You guys must be pretty good friends,” Katrien remarked, her soft voice audible through the silence that preceded her voice, “How endearing.”

Katrien had to be joking. There was no way she could be that bad at reading the atmosphere.

“Can you  _ make noise when you walk _ ?” Elisabeth said through clenched teeth, “I will blame you for my early death. My tombstone: Dead, because Katrien decided she was actually a cat one too many times. Don’t  _ scare _ me like that.”

“I’m not acting like a cat, I  _ am _ a cat. Isn’t it obvious? It's in my name!” 

Elisabeth graced that remark with judgemental silence, though she could not stop her mouth from twitching in an aborted smile.

With an affronted, muttered, ” _ weirdos _ ” Junice stormed away as if she was the one that had been personally assaulted by Katrien’s horrible jokes.

“Well, she sure embodies the word ‘flouncing away’, doesn't she,” Katrien remarked, “Bouncy hair, too. Do you think that’s a requirement to be considered flouncy? My hair couldn’t possibly get on that level.”

“You can’t possibly think that was friendship?” Elisabeth said, “We don’t get along in the slightest.”

“Like how you get along with me?” Katrien said, amused, “You just enjoy jabbing at people all too much. Perfect candidate for fencing, if you ask me.”

“Jabbing is jabbing, but Junice is just malicious. It’s not the same.”

“Does that mean I’m not malicious?” Katrien clasped her hand to her chest dramatically. “Wow, I didn’t know you had such high opinion of me.” Elisabeth sighed.

“Watch it or I’ll take it back,” Elisabeth said dryly.

“Take what back? You never said we were friends anyways.” And Katrien threw back her head and laughed at her own joke, which sounded more like she was choking.

“Is there a reason you always sound like you’re on the verge of scraping your lungs off the floor?” Elisabeth asked, a little concerned. “I can’t tell if you’re actually dying. And stop, it isn’t  _ that _ funny.”

It took Katrien a moment to get enough breath back to reply.

“Somewhat. The doctor said the huge amounts of dust and book lice droppings and whatnot made my lungs rather hate me, and it’s become permanently clenched or something bothersome. Since I’ve been enjoying talking to you, it’s just a little worse than usual. Do you know hand language?”

“No, I can’t see it enough.” Elisabeth scowled. 

“Ah well, I meant if you know of its existence, not if you knew it yourself but- I prefer using my hands to talk lest I strain my voice too much,”

Feeling chagrined, she nodded and was about to subtly apologize but the drill instructor called them to attention, voice strong and clear compared to Katrien’s.

“All of you have been called here because your library's director saw potential. Do not think this excuses you for laziness or incompetence because potential can still be squandered if you do not have enough self-discipline. While training under me, you can refer to me as Ronan.”

There was a pause.

“But I am here to see you grow and to help you stay alive among demons. If you need additional help, I will make time for you. Now that that’s done- start your running! Five laps around this Library!”

Elisabeth, for all her years at the library and it’s gardens, had no idea how to  _ run _ around an intangible object. She didn’t usually run on principle. 

“Sir,” Katrien said rather stiffly when the rest of the apprentices’ steps had already left, “She can’t see where she is running. How can she do this?”

Ronan said, voice dry, “Yes. I am aware. Run along, apprentice. No need to play the guard dog.”

After a long pause, Katrien ran off too. Elisabeth clenched the hands that were behind her back.

“I don’t know how you plan on learning the sword when you can’t see, but that’s Director Diane’s decision. Even if you can’t run the same as the others, you still need stamina. You can navigate the staircase to the second floor?

There was indeed a staircase to the balcony nearby, a prime spot for tea or brunch for the other Apprentices. It was still early morning, so the balcony was likely empty and perhaps a little wet from the morning dew, She nodded.

“Walk up and down those stairs until all the other apprentices finish.”

That was, at least, do-able. She walked to the stairs with her head still stubbornly held high and started on the first step.

  
  


Ronan was definitely some sort of sadist. By the time the rest of the apprentices (And how  _ slow _ they were) got back, her thighs were screaming and each step burned up to her lungs. Katrien was no better when she rejoined them, raspy breaths sounding painful and ragged.   
“Water?” Elisabeth held out the canteen she had brought.

Katrien accepted it and wetly coughed after taking a drink.

Soon they were occupied with stretches that pulled at her already fatigued muscles and loosened her stiff spine and ended with the basic sword forms. She was solely relying on Katrien’s whispers of “leg a little farther. Turn your foot outwards a little more,” to figure out what exactly they were supposed to be done without disturbing the entire class. Ronan didn’t comment about it other than to correct her a few times, but he seemed to treat everyone equally, at least.

It was frustrating, holding a pose that you were forced to estimate and changing pose to pose extra slowly just to make sure that anyone who she might bump into wouldn’t leave with a bruise. Before the noontime meal, they were dismissed for the day, and yet Elisabeth only felt her frustrations and doubt well into the pit of her stomach. 

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Katrien groaned, “though I’ve no appetite left after this. Lying down in the grass is looking extra appealing.”

Elisabeth stood still there, dragging her breath in and out again, trying to cool the molten ball of dissatisfaction sitting below her heart and ground out, “I think I will practice, a little more.” She settled back into the first of a handful of stances that they had gone through and held it though she couldn’t even stop her arms from shaking anymore.

“Practicing is fine, but you shouldn’t overdo it, “Katrien said, still behind her and voice only a whisper, “It is yet the first day.”

But if she didn’t do this, she wouldn't be able to rest, to lie down at night, and forget how useless she felt when practicing something that was only so much more difficult because of who she was. She had already made peace with her exclusion from the other apprentice’s activities and was at peace in her own little bubble, but becoming a Warder was so different, such an ideal that she never thought that she’d reach, that she found herself fighting for some semblance of control. 

“Then, do you mind if I help position your arms? I still remember what the forms look like, quite clearly, even if I can’t do them quite right myself.”

“That’s fine.”

Indeed Katrien gripped her arms higher and straightened her wrist. With a quiet warning, she also knocked her stance lower.

“That’s the first one. You’re lucky your posture is so good, it's hard to relearn. Especially for the annoyingly tall.”

“Aren’t you just short?” Elisabeth said, and Katrien let out an offended snort.

After holding it until the shaking in her arms was violent enough to disrupt the pose, she slowly moved it to where she approximated the next, trying to cement the position in her head.

“There’s a discipline where they move that slow,” Katrien idly remarked as she helped position, “Did you already know?”

“No,” she gritted out, “I just don’t want to hit you.”

“Isn’t the point of swords to hit people? Swing at will.” Katrien sounded annoyingly amused.

“If I hit you, the number of brain cells you have will drop to critical levels.”

“That’s assuming I have any left to lose, dear.”

Katrien had come close enough to her back that she could feel the remnants of her breath on her neck. Even through the shaking, Elisabeth stiffened.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Katrien said, soft voice drifting within the natural noontime sound of the birds and trees, She gripped Elisabeth’s arm and dragged her back into the library, Elisabeth stumbling from surprise but shocked enough to follow.

Catching herself, she gritted her teeth, “I can endure, More practice is just a requirement.”

“You’ll end up injuring yourself.”

“I’ll injure myself if I’m so inept at swordsmanship that I can’t fight off the demons, too,” Elisabeth muttered petulantly.

“You’ll hurt yourself to the point where you can’t be a Warder at all. Don’t be a fool.”

She already knew that. How could she not? But it hadn’t stuck in her head until Katrien physically spoke it into existence. Reluctantly, she started walking toward the library, Katrien naturally sliding into the spot beside her. 

“If you don’t mind, what’s the logic behind your sight?” Katrien unexpectedly interjected, “Sometimes I swear you’re staring straight at me.”

“Through all of my bangs?” Elisabeth replied, “I’m well aware I cover my eyes. What do you mean?”

“You know, the feeling when people stare at you. I get that from you, sometimes.”

“Isn’t that just because you’re self-conscious? I feel that from other people, but I’m not sure if they are, or not. It’s not as if I can tell.”

Katrien just hummed under her breath.

“I can see things, sometimes.” Elisabeth admitted, “I’m not quite sure how it works. Mostly what little light is given off by the Grimoires, I can see by. Like a small candle in the dark.”

“Are you- are you seeing ethereal combustion as light?”

“Combus- you mean the magic stuff?”

“Yes. Energy from another dimension burning into a magical reaction- ethereal combustion.”

“Ah. Sorry, I learned that from...a book. I wasn’t quite sure?”

“You were taught about magic by an unreliable book of all things? Why not the director?”

Elisabeth sighed.

“The director is busy, and not often here. Don’t get too used to her being around” 

Certainly, Elisabeth remembered missing the woman when she went on a trip to the capital to attend the country-wide meeting with the other directors. 

What they actually talked about she had no clue.

“Why do you think I’m seeing ethereal combustion, of all things? It’s a rather large leap.”

There was a moment of silence before Katrien replied.

“When you see things... Does it smell a certain way?”

“That’s not specific enough.”

“The smell of burning air. Like a lightning strike.”

“I’ve never been close enough to lightning to smell it, you realize.”

Katrien let out a breath in a half-laugh.

“Ah. Perhaps I’ll point it out next time.”

“Besides, how do you know what that smells like?”

Katrien paused again as if gathering her thoughts.

“...I’ve met a magician before. It’s nothing special.”

It was vague enough Elisabeth couldn’t tell why it took Katrien so long to answer. Perhaps it was an uncomfortable memory?

They had already long entered the lunch hall where the other trainees were eating, spoons clacking against their wooden bowls. Elisabeth, after a fleeting moment of indecision, grabbed for Katrien’s elbow, feeling her jerk slightly at the unexpected contact.

“Let’s go sit?” Elisabeth said rather forcefully over the chaos and tried to put a smile on her face.

Katrien made a sound of agreement and led her to a chair that was not her usual seat, but one closer to the others. Not that she had her own place during lunch. Usually, she was too impatient to properly sit down and eat and instead just took some bread and cheese to eat in a quieter section of the library. But it was nice, listening to the ambient chatter of the other trainees, mostly complaining about how sore they were.

“What are we eating?” Elisabeth said, voice barely over the background noise, “It smells like bread.”

“Just sandwich materials. Want me to make you one?”

Elisabeth agreed and wondered when she had ever been alright with someone helping her, even if it was just for convenience. After all, she could make a sandwich herself if she had gone to the kitchen instead. 

But then again, she might also just be too tired from climbing up and down the stairs the entire morning. 

The sound in the room quieted as the door opened and someone who was most likely the director walking in. After a pause, she made her way toward where Elisabeth sat and put her hand on the chair back. 

“Hello, Apprentices. Unfortunately, I’ve been called to a meeting in the capital. They’ve said it’s rather urgent- I know that we have a guest coming soon from the capital as well, but I’m sure everyone knows what to do. You can handle it, yes?”

There were murmured assents from the group at the table. 

Elisabeth set down the sandwich, appetite lost. From what she heard, the capitals were full of cutthroats and snakes, and- well, Grimoires were also prone to over-exaggeration, but it didn’t make her worries any less. 

“Can you give me the time and who our guest is? As a reminder. There have been cases of random people claiming to be magicians, after all...” Elisabeth trailed off.

The d irector chuckled and patted her shoulder. “One Nathaniel Crawford, coming the day after the next, looking into some history grimoire that’s obscure enough that we’re the only library that has it. I hear he’s quite the historian, that one.”

“Fancy that,” Elisabeth muttered, “Even when you hardly know if the Grimoires are lying or not in their words? Authors have no reason not to conjure up lies and seal them in a book.”

“Don’t bully the guest,” the director chided, and Katrien snorted and promptly started choking on something. “History is a perfectly wonderful hobby. The ones you have to look out for are the pyromaniacs and the world-domination hobbyists. They tend to burn paperwork and commit fraud.” 

“Something is off about your priorities,” Elisabeth muttered, and she heard the Director laugh.

“They’re what's important to me, unfortunately.”

Elisabeth scowled. “Go away and take your wrath over paperwork to the board members. It's only fair revenge for them forcing you to travel so much over petty disputes.”

“I do hope it’s something petty,” the Director said, “The argument over Genny’s fashion choices was quite refreshing.”

After reviewing Elisabeth and the rest of the Apprentices there of their schedules, the woman left with only a horse and a pack, likely containing all of the woman’s slightly fancier clothes (or so she says) to the capital. Elisabeth was hoping that nothing, absolutely  _ nothing _ interesting happened other than her training in the next month or so. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you're this many words in and aren't at the inciting incident yet because its not the right time smh


	4. Chapter 4

The guest finally arrived on a sunny day, cutting her morning training short. Elisabeth walked as fast as she could to the front entrance after a runner had informed her of their arrival by carriage. 

The front entrance was marked by its strong summer scent carried by the heat of the day. Elisabeth made her way down the stone steps, using her long cane to make sure nothing had randomly decided to block her steps and ignoring the runner who was just hovering anxiously around her. 

She stopped a polite distance from the huffing horses and her guest dismounted from his carriage with some sort of flourish, a singular white lock of hair glaring strangely bright. She could even see the individual strands of hair, but that couldn’t be right. It illuminated the man’s face so that his features and eyes were in startling clarity although the rest of him was still in the darkness of her vision. The man grinned a cheeky smile at her and she dipped her head in acknowledgment. 

From behind him, an everyday white-haired servant dismounted to stand by his side. Common looking, except for the fact that she could  _ see _ the man’s entire body _. _ She couldn’t stop herself from staring at the servant until she wrenched her eyes away and introduced herself, stiff.

“Hello, I am Elisabeth Scrivenor.-”

“And I, Nathaniel Crawford.”

Her eyebrow twitched when he bowed.

“Yes, I hope you’ve had a pleasant journey, Master Crawford. The director has been called to the capital, unfortunately, so I will be your host for the next few days.”

“My, I didn’t realize that instead of the Director I would get a pretty Apprentice as a host,” he said, smiling, “What luck. Perhaps my research should also find such good fortune.’

She rolled her eyes behind her bangs and turned to lead him to his temporary quarters, ignoring the way his servant stared back at her with a blank face. 

She wanted to study him or interrogate him because seeing his entire being surely indicated that he wasn’t  _ human _ but she tried to ignore his presence and occupy herself with her mental map of the library instead. It would be mortifying to walk into a wall while leading someone else around. 

“Oh!” Crawford said from behind her, “Is that a sword?”

“Yes, I’m currently training to be a Warder.”

“So you’re one of those people unafraid to fight a demonic construct? Even with magic, I wouldn’t want to go against one. The price would be too much.” He laughed, “The same thing that got my family in trouble, I suppose.”

“Not everyone knows your entire family history, Mr. Crawford,” Elisabeth remarked dryly, “No matter what those in the city claim. Stop speaking of vague things unless you want me to force you to elaborate.”

“I didn’t know that the host would be a bully,” Nathaniel said, huffing. “I’m scared I’ll never recover from my encounter with this feral librarian…Who knew trying to act mysterious would end up with a threat against my life?”

“If you could stop the dramatics for a minute,” Elisabeth interjected, “These are your quarters.” 

She had led him to one of the lower rooms that were meant for guests: opulent enough for nobles but not quite as luxurious as the capital. They weren’t rolling in money, after all, no matter that their funds were provided by the state. 

The room was visible through a haze, the servant casting a strange light that illuminated things in monotone and dyed things white. It was overwhelming enough that she quickly dismissed herself from their rooms after promising to lead them to the dining hall for lunch. She retreated to the director’s office where the darkness was familiar. 

The guest was a sorcerer, and sorcerers always came paired with summoned demons in exchange for the summoner’s life force. But seeing something like that was vastly different from simply hearing about it. And seeing it with sight was unsettling. The  _ sight  _ was unsettling. 

Hoping for some of the routine sword drills to calm herself down, she made her way back into the courtyard where the other trainees were more than halfway through practicing their sword stances. They would start sparring the next day and she wasn’t sure if she should anticipate it or dread it. As the current acting manager of the library, it was strange to go from knowing exactly what she should be doing to a bumbling fool of a novice. 

Elisabeth made her way to her usual spot amidst the other’s stares and settled in with anxious energy, but the familiar routines ended up relaxing her to where she felt sleepy from the overhead sun.

Katrien waited next to her after they had finished and the other apprentices were making their way inside to avoid the heat. Knowing that there was yet time before noon meal, she led Katrien to the shade next to a tree where she could feel the breeze on her sweating face. 

“Katrien, “ Elisabeth began without inflection, “I can see the guest’s servant.”

“Didn’t the Director say he was a historian?” Katrien sounded confused, “Why is a demon his servant? Who is he?”

“One Nathaniel Crawford. He seems normal, from what I can tell, although he likes to act dramatic.”

“Crawford??” Katrien swore, “The Crawfords are famous from the last war because they  _ rose the dead _ and made their corpses end it.”

Necromancy? To be honest, Crawford hadn’t seemed the type but she supposed no one would want to look like a necromancer when it was considered a taboo magic. 

“Well, it proves that I can clearly see things… from the alternate dimension. For whatever reason. Should I be worried? He was staring at me…”

“He has his own food source already,” Katrien scoffed, “You should be more worried about his master. If not for his master, what reason would he had to kill you?”

“He’s a demon,” Elisabeth pointed out, “Aren’t they known for sucking the life out of people? Killing them?”

Katrien let out a sigh and muttered, “I’d rather trust demons rather than humans, honestly…”

“And you give me shit for hanging out with books more than people,” Elisabeth said, amused. “But I think you’re right. Though Crawford has no reason to bother with me other than the fact that he thinks I’m pretty.”

“Well, you are,” Katrien said, “Though more in a ‘get stepped on’ type of way rather than a ‘pretty’ type of way.”

“...What? You want to get stepped on?”

“Nothing,” Katrien replied cheerfully, “I kind of want to kick him.”

“Calm down, he didn’t lean in like some of the other nobles. Give him some slack for that, at least.”

“Can’t I stab  _ them _ ? My sword skills have to be useful for something,” Katrien said wistfully.

“Maybe next time, if you’re still here.”

“It would inconvenience the Director though…”

Elisabeth smiled her best innocent smile.

“I’m sure she would pay you to stab some of them. Don’t worry, I’ll help you hide the body.” 

She probably shouldn’t have insinuated that it was okay for Katrien to stab people. When Elisabeth brought Crawford down for lunch with his servant (and wasn’t that strange? Usually nobles got their servant to bring up their food with them rather than eat at the communal table, especially those of the higher class like Nathaniel definitely was), Katrien and Crawford immediately started insulting each other. She had no clue who had even started it.

Elisabeth sighed and waited for Crawford to sit (on the other side of her) before sitting herself. 

“Why is fancy boy sitting in the general hall, anyways?” Katrien asked, “You look out of place here. Who wears a cravat anymore?”

“It’s fashion in the capital. But I suppose you wouldn’t know fashion if it hit you in the face, seeing as how what you’re wearing is completely last year.”

Katrien scoffed. “Who cares about current trends when they look like  _ that _ ? I guess money really can’t buy taste.”

They were both so… catty. Elisabeth not-so-discreetly elbowed Katrien in the side before starting on her food.

“What-  _ Elisabeth _ . I thought we were friends? How could you betray me like this”

“Though you are a guest, Mr. Crawford is also my guest. Eat before I  _ make you _ .”

“Going to hand-feed me?” Katrien said, in a good mood again, “Ooh.”

Elisabeth glared at her until she actually started eating.

Crawford took the silence as an opportunity to insist that they call him Nathan.

“Why?” Elisabeth muttered under her breath. “I swear you act like a friendly dog. Have you decided that we are going to be good friends and are acting as such in advance?”

“Of course,” he replied, “Where else would I find someone as prone to trying to stab me with only the look on their face?”

The servant next to him, which she could still see in  _ perfect clarity, _ was staring at her. Perhaps considering murder from how poorly they were treating his master?

But she used his helpful lamp qualities and took the opportunity to serve her own food with a strange sort of satisfaction.

Nathan, perhaps noticing her incessant staring at his servant (she knew she wasn’t subtle, although she wished she could be), introduced the man.

“Since we’re such good friends, I should introduce you! This is Silas, my house’s longest servant.”

Elisabeth just nodded her head and fell silent between Nathan and Katrien’s grumbling conversation, enjoying the sight of the table while it lasted and drinking in the sight of the shape of the ornate plates and silverware while she could, as well as the faces of the other apprentices that hadn’t let her touch their faces.

Honestly, it wasn’t as if her hands were unpleasant. She washed them quite a lot and never had long, sharps nails. 

Katrien's features were the most surprising, even though she had already felt up her face. Her short-cropped hair and unapologetic way of wearing clothes meant for men undoubtedly suited her, and her face that she had mapped out with her hands had a lopsided grin that looked like it often resided on her face. Despite her clothes, her face looked like it had a delicate structure. Nathan also had a similar mocking smirk, and Silas, though his face seemed immobilized, had a detectable aura of long-suffering as he stood behind Nathan. 

She brushed aside her bangs in annoyance as she tried to get a better look at Katrien.

“Wait,” Katrien said, suddenly serious and without a smile, “Are you  _ looking _ at me?” 

“There's a light source here,” Elisabeth said, “I’m enjoying it while I can.”

“What?” Nathan interrupted, “A light source? You mean the chandelier?”

Elisabeth looked up to the  _ chandelier _ for the first time and then stared at Nathan with her eyes in full view. She knew her eyes were unsettling - she had heard many an apprentice complain that the blankness of them and the scars around them were creepy and unsettling. Especially since she still managed to look directly at them though she couldn’t technically see where they were. (Although she  _ had _ practiced doing that for the sole reason of creeping the other Apprentices out)

“Oh, are- are you blind? Or need a lot of light to see? Some of the elders on the council constantly complain about that sort of thing.”

"Something like that, yes.”

“And you’re still trying to become a Warder?”

There was a pause, and Elisabeth knew she had twisted her face in some sort of way. But before she could react, he quickly amended.

“No, I mean, that’s admirable, doing it anyway.”

She continued staring at him, at a loss at what to do since she was unused to that sort of compliment. 

“I-its something like overcoming the hand you’re dealt with? I wish I could say the same of myself.”

Was the man sweating just from her stare? That was not new, but unexpected.

“Master,” the servant interjected smoothly, “There’s no need to act like a star-struck boy.”

Silas was apparently feeling second-hand embarrassment from the stumbling words of Nathan. Or was it teasing? It was hard to tell when even Silas’s voice was flat and soft, similar to Katrien’s but with less inflection.

Elisabeth smirked and focused on eating her meal instead. Her bangs kept falling in front of her face and blocking what hazy vision she had, and she tried to sweep it behind her ear only for it to fall in front of her face again. Annoying. Someone tapped her hand, and Katrien removed some sort of thing from her hair and passed it to Elisabeth. It was… some sort of clip?

“For your hair,” Katrien said. When Elisabeth couldn’t get all her bangs out of the way, she decided to haphazardly only show the eye on Katrien’s side. Her right eye. Since Katrien seemed to care the least and didn’t stare at her. 

She wondered as she finished her meal if she could ‘borrow’ Silas as a convenient light post during the spars in her morning training. No, it wouldn’t do to be reliant on something that wasn’t a guarantee, after all

But perhaps she could see the demonic constructs she was due to fight against? Although creating one just to test a theory was dumb, it would help her confidence.

“What’s got you thinking so hard?” Nathan said, “It suspicious when you look at that piece of bread like it has the secrets of the universe.”

“The bread,” Elisabeth replied, “It’s  _ fluffy. _ ”

Nathan was visibly taken aback. “...Yes? It’s something to do with the air bubbles of the yeast.”

She crushed the bread in her hands and tore a piece off with her teeth.

“It tears and looks like the way rocks feel.”

“...Um.”

“You wanted to know my thoughts, so I gave them to you. Don’t ask for things you don't want,  _ Master Crawford _ .”

He looked a little speechless and looked at Katrien for help. Katrien was of no help.

“Master Crawford,” Katrien said in her sugariest voice, which was still something resembling a choking cat, “Since you’re our good friend, could we perhaps borrow your servant...for an hour, perhaps?”

Nathan was immediately suspicious from Katrien’s voice alone. 

“Why.”

“To look at other  _ fluffy _ things.”

Nathan looked to Silas for help.

Silas' lips were something you could call a smile if you were a rock, and he patting Nathan’s head consolingly.

“Sage, the women here make no sense,” he muttered, “I’ll be lucky if I leave here with all my brain cells intact, won’t I?”

“That’s assuming you had any intact to begin with,” Katrien said sweetly, “Don’t worry, I just don’t like you.”

“Why on earth do you dislike me?” Nathan said.

“Something about your face,” Katrien said, “And the fact that you’re a sorcerer. Although I never said that I  _ dislike _ you.”

After a moment of silence where Nathan looked like he would hurt himself trying to figure Katrien out, Elisabeth took pity on him.

“If you’re done, I’ll show you some books relevant to your research, Master Nathan, and you can begin your research.”

His smile came back in full force but he couldn’t keep the eagerness to recoup from Katrien out of his voice.

“Oh, of course! Lead the way, Ms. Scrivenor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draws fanart of my own fic cuz I can smh


	5. Chapter 5

With how stressed hosting for Nathan was, it was not unexpected that she got sick. Well, Katrien had also been telling her to stop working so hard in her Warder training and to relax, constantly. But the director had trusted her to finish her duties and she wasn’t about to disappoint her. 

Katrien had offered to learn, but Elisabeth still hadn’t let her do anything even though the woman had likely seen her do everything several times because she followed Elisabeth around even when she was doing work. She seemed especially interested when she was doing the ceremonies she used to bind the books behind the iron gate, completely silent until it was over.

Sore from the sparring that morning where she always reacted too late, she coughed and felt her chest aching as she climbed the stairs, burning up to her throat from the exercise, her head a ball of oil-soaked wool, warm and hazy and altogether distracting her from even Katrien's concern. 

“-Ms. Scrivener. Ms. Scrivener?” A voice snapped her out of her daze, and from the green of the grass that was suddenly illuminated, she knew it must be Nathan and his light-shadow.

“Yes? Is there something you need?” She was still the epitome of polite even though she felt like shit.

He paused before remarking, “My, you sound nearly as bad as Miss Katrien does. Like a dragon that’s been smoking cigars for a lifetime. Are you sure you haven’t been gargling rocks?”

“Last time I checked no. Let me guess, you want to see some of the higher level manuscripts, and were unable to get past the gates?”

Nathan winced. “How did you know?”

She just looked at him, until he let out a nervous laugh. Nothing could hide the scent of ethereal combustion, especially the particular flavor of the magic lurking behind the gates that were permanently tainted with the smell of iron. Nathan’s own scent of combustion was a rose one, strong enough to be bitter at the back of her tongue. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was different enough that there was no way he hadn’t messed with the gates.

He finally muttered half to himself, “Alright, alright keep your secrets. Wouldn’t want to ruin your alluring and yet mysterious facade.”

“Have a liking for such things?” Elisabeth replied, gesturing to his servant who excluded the aura of ‘mysterious and cool’ to the extreme, most likely due to his flat facial expression and neutral body language. Honestly, she hoped she would be able to get to know him better, even if he was most definitely a demon pretending(very badly) to be human. 

(Definitely not just because she wanted to take advantage of his lamp-like qualities)

Nathan turned faintly redder, from what color she could see. Interesting.

“Alright, I’ll help you in a moment,” she said and walked them to the outer door of the library where she had to stop and cough her lungs out for a second.

Katrien opened the door for her.

“I’m sure you are capable of opening the door,” she said in response to Elisabeth’s arched eyebrow. “But I feel helpful, right now, and you sound like you should take a hot bath and sleep, not walk around in this dusty library. It’s alright to give the rest of us loafers some tasks, you know.”

Elisabeth cracked a smile and admitted to herself that Katrien did have a point. She really would like a bath and then a nap. Though teaching the tasks to only Katrien while there were so many other apprentices was a little strange…. but perhaps she could teach Katrien and then some other apprentice? She didn’t know what experience anyone had, after all, though she only recently was able to see Katrien’s unnatural grace while moving, even though she also looked more like she was stalking something when she walked.

“Perhaps I’ll let you touch the gate, longingly, just like Mr. Nathan.”

“You wouldn’t!” Katrien protested, but she was still smiling a lopsided grin, “Well, no matter. I appreciate that you give me someone to torment while I look through the bars.”

Elisabeth made her way to the upper floor where the gate was with her entourage, feeling rather dusty from practice but wanting to get her task over because she felt the beginning of a headache. She held out her iron keys to Katrien, who delicately took them with gloved hands that were also dusty from practice.

“Since you keep on hinting that you know how to do this job, you can try some of it out. Perhaps when the director comes back, I can bring up that it would be better to have more than one person able to care for these books. You were an apprentice in your previous town, correct?”

Katrien’s mouth quirked and she sprung up to lightly grip her shoulder, “Are you feeling alright? You don’t have to let me just because I whine about it. Though I do appreciate it.”

Elisabeth waved her off. “To be honest, my head hurts too much. It’s easier to point out what you’re doing wrong rather than making sure I get everything right.”

She also wanted to show Katrien some trust. Cautiously. She was still there to make sure no one stole anything, after all, but why would someone training to be a Warder want to steal a book? Nathan was more likely to do so.

“How has your research been going along, then?” Elisabeth said to Nathan as Katrien began the routine to open the door and the four stepped through the gate into the small atrium. (It wasn’t that dangerous, since she had been properly maintained it and the books seemed to be in a good mood.) In the noon light, the floor was mostly in shadow and the colors in the window stained their walls.

“As research always goes. Well, it’s theoretical. On the exchange of energies between the demonic and the human dimension, and the balance.” 

“And your theory…?” Because that explained exactly nothing.

“That demons are vital so that this dimension does not collapse, as counterintuitive as that seems. After all, who would think that conjuring water out of the air has anything to do with balance?”

“I think the fact that demons are demons are where most people would object to that theory,” Elisabeth said, “Wouldn’t that make demons the citizens of both dimensions?”

“Citizens…” And Nathan was silent for long enough that Elisabeth had probably temporarily lost him to his own brain.

Elisabeth watched Katrien close the gates behind them almost professionally, though she was unnaturally silent as if she were also thinking about magic and demons. The books around her rustled in their fancy chains and embellishments, clinking against each other as if impatient in this atmosphere. Silas, after all, was conveniently near the center podium.

Really, some of these books… who decided that such grotesquely twisted metal and leather work was a good idea? Elisabeth nearly felt sorry for them, the book’s whispered contents nowhere near as horrific as their gnarled covers would suggest. She couldn’t help brushing her fingers on their spines as they whispered their greetings and cooed contentedly from the attention.

“You know.” Nathan said, “Grimoires are a little creepy, aren’t they? I can’t imagine what it’s like to live among them for years. I’d probably start dreaming of them coming to kill me in my sleep, like some sort of sleep-demon.”

“As if humans don’t want to do that as well?” Katrien remarked.

“Yes, well, my master is popular,” Silas said, now standing next to the gate like some sort of guard, hands neatly crossed behind his back. He looked very exasperated from the thought.

Elisabeth was unsure if he was joking or not so she pressed the back of her fingers to the noisy book on the podium in greeting. It hissed in familiar tones as she petted it to quieten it as it shifted against its chains and wards.

“Is that the famous Grimoire of Eyes? I heard that’s a scary one,” Nathan was craning his head, trying to read the titles in the bookcase and walking slowly around the room. The books seemed to behave themselves around him but Elisabeth could hear their whispers(gossiping, really) as soon as he passed. “Isn’t that… what, a level nine? It could probably give you hell even when locked to that podium you know. And you’re petting it like a dog.”

“It tries to influence the people around it, yes,” Elisabeth replied, “Do let me know if you hear alarming whispers in your head that aren’t your servant and I’ll kick you out.”

Nathan gave her a Look. “Do you often hear voices in your head?”

With a blank stare at his direction, Nathan immediately backtracked.

“Not to say you look like you do! Maybe a little feral, yes, but nothing malicious… I think. If you continue looking at me like that I might reconsider.”

Ah. right. Her bangs were still up since the sweaty bangs were annoying even if her eyes were more for decoration and glaring at people. She considered brushing her bangs back to cover her eyes before discarding that idea as pointless. They’d already gotten an eyeful, after all. What was the point?

“Have you found what you were looking for?” she said instead, and Katrien came up to her to also peer at the Grimoire of Eyes. The tome did stand out, being the only book on the podium in the exact center of the squared circle of a room. Dramatic, really. Especially with the unnerving embossing of metal eyes that seemed to stare at them unnervingly, unblinkingly, the irises dilated to an inhumanly sharp shape-  _ the torrent of cold was so painful, it stabbed into their hearts and ripped them apart piece by piece, it hurt so much so constantly so unending- _

She shook her head violently to snap out of it and cradled her head with her arms. Her head hurt. Katrien’s voice finally came into focus painfully, her ears ringing painfully.

“Elisabeth! Hey- you- Are you okay? What was that?”

“What was what? Did I do something?”

“You froze and stopped responding for...a while.”

Elisabeth started when Nathan also piped in, closer than she was expecting but still keeping a distance from the podium.

“Did the Grimoire of Eyes do something?”

Not that that little amount of space between the grimoire and him would help any if it really wanted to do something. You would have to be completely outside the gate. But the feeling of being stared at by a multitude of eyes from before had receded and she doubted it would do anything more.

“And that’s why you should not just try to open the gate yourself, no matter how urgent it is,” Elisabeth said, “These books are not always… in their right minds.”

“What did it do to you?” Nathan said, always morbidly curious, she supposed. The foil of a researcher.

“It was in pain,” she replied vaguely, “Torn apart, it said. I think there are other parts of this book in other libraries. Perhaps it doesn’t like that. I heard this is the largest portion of the Grimoire, after all. ”

“Why did they split it into uneven sections? That violates the stability of the magic it contains,” Nathan trailed off, eyes defocusing again in thought. Really, she didn’t really know why dividing things evenly or oddly was such a big deal.

“Perhaps some parts of the magic are more connected than others. Like how you can live without certain things but not others.”

“That’s talking about Grimoires in terms of people. But they’re...” Nathaniel said absently, wandering over to the bookshelves as if half awake and flipping through one despite the chains holding it half shut. 

She strangely felt the ground tilting as she tried to track where the hell he was walking and Katrien appeared in her hazy vision as a blob of darkness as she manhandled her into one of the sparse armchairs in the room, one bathed in the dizzying colors of the window and sat her down. 

It was strange, all the visual input catching up to her in a massive headache behind her eyes that was kickstarted by what she hoped wasn’t a fever. She couldn’t help but let out a groan and rubbed at her eyes, bright spots dancing in her vision. Her companion sat down on the floor with a wince and leaned against the chair as well, just watching over Nathan and Silas as they looked for... whatever they were looking for. They weren’t allowed to take the books out of the gated atrium except if they did an overly long ritual meant to sedate the book for about a day so that the book wouldn’t rip the sorcerer’s head off if they pissed the book off. Which seemed a little too likely in Nathan’s case.

So she just closed her eyes, though it wasn’t nearly as dark enough to give her solace from her headache completely, and leaned back into the armchair.

It was a very cushy armchair if a bit dusty. It tickled at her nose.

“How do you apprentices restrain yourself from reading all these books?” Nathan had picked out a stack and settled near them to partially unlock them to flip through and sort out what he wanted to read more in-depth. “I would likely get lost in the stacks for weeks if I lived here. The library at central is a lot more strict- they’ve kicked me out far too many times. I think the Director there hates me...”

“I can’t exactly read,” Elisabeth pointed out, “and a lot of these books curse you when you open them. For people who are not sorcerers, it just isn’t something you do for fun. And the civilians steer clear of here because they’re convinced that magic and sorcerers will curse their families, are demons, etc, etc.”

“Not in the Capital. Sorcerers are celebrities there,” he replied with a smirk, “Many young men or women fawn over me in the streets, you know. According to some paper or the other, I’m the number one bachelor of the Capital.”

Elisabeth snorted. “Congratulations? Who decides these things, anyway? The villagers here would probably rather court a tree.”

“Bridge trolls decided it,” Katrien said, “That's the only way someone with his mouthiness could have ever won something like that.”

“Why, thank you. I’ve never been called  _ mouthy _ before.”

“I think Katrien just brings out the best in you,” Elisabeth was amused again despite her brain feeling distinctly fuzzy and in danger of falling asleep.

And then Nathan touched a book that promptly burst into an operatic aria several octaves too high to be comfortable in such small, stone quarters. Elisabeth slammed her hands over her ears and squinted in pain, Katrien jolting next to her and reaching over to grapple the book closed with hissed apologies to the book. 

“That’s enough” Katrien hissed, techy, “Figure out what you want so we can go take a bath and you can read it. In your own room.” She was still clutching the tome with her arms in what looked like a crushing hug.

“Right.” Nathan said with a wince, “I think that nearly ruptured my eardrums. Hopefully, the glass here is impervious to aggressive operatic singing.” He quickly and cautiously stacked up the majority of the books to be put back, and Elisabeth got up to accept them.

“Uh... Miss Scrivener?” Nathan said as she was sliding the books back in their place, the Grimoires helping her out a little by telling her where they rested. 

“Yes?”

“How are you going to put back the...aggressive book?”

Elisabeth glanced over to Katrien, who was still sitting on the floor and looked rather grumpy even while hugging a book like some sort of stuffed animal.

“Katrien,” she began slowly, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes,” she said irritably, “tell me how to help and I will.”

Elisabeth crouched down next to her with some trepidation. Katrien had never gotten so visibly grumpy before, so quickly… though perhaps the silences in their conversations and quieter days were just hiding it. Her voice was low and quiet enough that it was hard to tell irritation from the slight gruffness- but even that was present in her normal speech since it always sounded like she had a cold. She slowly reached out to touch the book and it paused as if to consider her.

“Come on, now,” she sighed, “He didn’t mean to spook you.”

She patted the top of the book and quickly pulled it out of Katrien’s arm’s and into her own, where she kept her grip strong but not too tight. The book wavered and then fell silent, the scent of ethereal combustion, of flowery sweetness, faded as if the book had decided that it was done with its performance for now.

With the remaining books, she took out her pouch of salt and iron filings, mixed in advance since she used it so much, and tied some into a sachet. Dropping it into an iron basin, she set it on fire with the flames from a sconce, and she bathed the book Nathan wished to read in the smoke and wafted it to a chimney located just outside of the gate. After the books’ murmurs dropped to sleepy, half-hearted whispers, she handed the book to Nathan and set the lid in to kill the fire.

Nathan looked amused for some reason. Well, setting a fire in a library was one of the stupider things her job required. She couldn’t fault him that. 

Katrien looked a lot less grumpy by the time they exited the gate, although she also looked like she was half asleep, likely coming down from the scare. Silas and Nathan weren’t looking much better. Did the smoke affect sorcerers and demons as well?

She resolutely shut her eyes at the spike of pain she felt from looking directly at Silas. It didn’t help, the light going through her eyelids and staining her sight red. Cracking open to search for something to help, she spotted Katrien’s waist sash that was hopefully more decorative than essential for holding up her clothes

“Katrien,” she muttered. The woman blinked and made a barely-there noise of question, “ Do you need this?”

Elisabeth tugged at the sash, a deep black piece of cloth with some squirming decoration on them- she couldn’t really make it out. Katrien smacked her hand away and untied it herself to hand it to her. She tied it around her head, beneath her bangs, looping it several times until no light at all could make it through. 

“What? How are you going to walk down the stairs with a blindfold?” Nathan said with surprise. It was strange to be unable to gauge  _ his _ facial expressions, especially since he had a convenient lamp of a forelock of hair. 

She scoffed in reply and walked down the stairs as quickly and certainly as she always did despite the sword she was still carrying dragging at her hip. Really, she’d fallen down these stairs enough times that she knew them as well as she knew how the director took her tea. 

It really was past time for a good, hot bath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with the random ass fandom update rather than fire emblem ohoho  
> its cause for contract the next editing block is massive Q_Q
> 
> And this is more in my own brain so i can say whatever I want?
> 
> anways i dont remember anything about canon management of magic freaking books except they in chains so I smoked them like you smoke bees
> 
> books = bees?  
> warden = beekeeper??
> 
> Also Elisabeth in a blindfold.... I like nier automata aesthetics enough said shhhh


	6. Chapter 6

She faced the woman across her with a scowl, positioning her long sword at a stiff shoulder level, muscles protesting but not burning at the weight of the metal. With a snicker, Dean landed another bruising hit to her legs before she could skip back and try to swing in retaliation. She was completely fed up with this one-sided match, made worse by her sheer frustration whenever it came to sparring. Combined with the fever in her head she felt her eyes start to water and so she swung recklessly at where she knew they would still be standing around at optimum harassment distance, Dean dodging with a slight yelp. Her follow up swing connected, and their body hit the floor with a thud that seemed loud in the resulting silence.

Ah, shit.

As expected, this attracted the attention of the instructor, as well as all the other students. Dean sniffed a little, perhaps from pain, and got up again. The instructor paused to check them over, and finally said to Elisabeth,

“Well, that was quite well done, even if it was more brute force than finesse. Have a little more confidence in yourself, Scrivener.”

Elisabeth felt her face heat up and she scowled. She didn’t want to seem weak, no, but having it pointed out so blatantly in front of so many other apprentices… it was too much.

“Just as likely to run myself through a sword by my own wild flailing,” Elisabeth muttered rather spitefully. Wearing armor for glancing cuts was one thing, but a stab to the torso would be painful no matter how she took it. Especially since she had so much more surface area to get hit in comparison with most people. She wasn’t even as solid as Katrien was, whose shorter height and wide stances let her weather spars and get under people’s guard. Not things that she herself could rely on in the slightest.

Unless she somehow became a sorcerer like Nathan, but that was an unattainable goal. Even if it wasn’t, it was no reason to neglect her physical condition since sorcerers still had to take time to cast magic or something. Plenty of time to stab someone, right?

Her sparring partner got another hit on her side and she clenched her teeth and tried to feel for the next one. The sounds of the people next to her drowned her hearing and she was forced back several steps by glancing blows to her shoulder. At least the other woman wasn’t aiming for any cheap shots, like some of the others did just because she couldn’t react in time and they liked the easy way out.

Really, people were so petty. Did they think that just because she didn’t see their faces that she couldn’t tell who they were?

She lashed out again, and another half-strangled sound of surprise escaped her partner when she clipped something rather solid that made them fall again. Pausing, she said disdainfully, “Can you stop yelping? If you want to spar someone who doesn’t hit back, go attack a fence post.”

Beating up people who expected her to be an easy target but instead became easy targets for her- that wouldn’t help her at all. Though she couldn’t have been any stronger than the rest of them, somehow her swings always unbalanced people from the sheer momentum of her longer, heavier sword.

“Switch with me, would you?” Katrien said next to Dean. They muttered something rather impolite, but Katrien ignored them, toeing them out of the way, and took position across from Elisabeth instead.

“Are you ready?” she said to Elisabeth as if she hadn’t just shoved a woman aside to stand there.

Elisabeth nodded and at the sound of her boot digging into the dirt, Katrien lunged so fast Elisabeth could barely move back quickly enough to reposition herself.

Katrien was humming in that low voice of hers almost absent-mindedly, sounding like the rumble of a cat, and Elisabeth focused on that to figure out where she was, swinging below the sound to hopefully not give Katrien a concussion if she hit. (Sage knew Katrien needed her brain in optimal shape)

The humming didn’t stop, and Elisabeth found Katrien’s practice sword tapping at her open shoulder from her swing.

Grinning helplessly, Elisabeth did her best to chase that disjointed melody.

Somehow, Katrien was pretty horrible at humming, having no logical rhythm and tune. She wondered what Katrien’s singing would be like.

* * *

“Hmm….” Katrien grumbled later, while they were done with the day’s training and gulping down their water. “My throat and voice did not like that.”

Katrien sounded like she was one badly timed inhale away from coughing up a lung.

“If it hurts you that much, you shouldn’t-” the dryness of Elisabeth’s throat caught up to her and she couldn’t help coughing into her arm, lungs burning.

“We’re in a right state, aren’t we?” Katrien muttered. “Oh, Sage, that f- that sorcerer is coming.” She also coughed. “If you don’t mind… I think I’ll stop talking today.”

Elisabeth nodded in sympathy since she really wanted to lie down and feel miserable rather than do anything else. True to Katrien’s word, Nathan’s shiny forelock of hair came into view and aggravated her headache again to where it felt like her eyes were being stabbed.

“Ugh… Katrien, sash?”

Wordlessly she handed over the same sash from yesterday, and Elisabeth tied it around her face in a hurry since Silas was likely right around the corner.

“Ms. Scrivener and Ms. Quillworthy!” the friendly voice of Nathan cut into their joint brooding, “Done with training? I’ll say, it looks like tiring work. Tiring, dirty, work.”

“Never done dirty work yourself?” Elisabeth said, “Pity. Dirt might suit you.”

Nathan paused as if unsure how to take her words but then continued on.

“So I need to go to that atrium again to find more books? Ah, but you’re blindfolded again? Are you feeling alright?”

It was her job to take him there, and her job to make sure the book he had taken out returned safe to the library’s shelves, so she nodded. Which made her dizzy so she paused and gestured to him to lead the way.

“...So we’re going? Uh, I’m sorry to say, I don’t quite remember where it is. It slips through my mind. Sorry to trouble-”

“It’s alright,” Elisabeth replied, “Sometimes there’s an illusion there cast by the books when they’re in the mood. It’s best you don’t remember so that you don’t wander and get caught by them.”

“Oh, I see I see,” Nathan said, “I suppose even though the Grimoires are under lock and key that their imprisoned baseline magic is enough when combined to create a sort of magical field around the library… why books in similar genres are kept apart even if it’s a pain to find them that way…”

His talking also hurt her head a little but that was really her own problem. His rambling researcher persona was more preferable than the charming aristocrat one, at least. With the level of insincere flirting that the nobility seemed to ooze, it was no wonder there were so many scandals.

“We’re here, Mr. Thorne,” Elisabeth said, amused despite herself as she unlocked the gate and ushered them in. “Hand the book from yesterday to me, would you?”

Nathan passed the Grimoire and she inspected it with her fingers. From what she could tell, it seemed pleased that it had an audience for the day, and was giggling to itself about how the demon with the sorcerer was so fluffy.

Fluffy was a strange way to describe him but she supposed it must be true if that of all things was the grimoire’s impression. She chained it to its bookshelf where the other tomes gathered close to it to whisper among themselves (gossiping old grumps, the lot of them).

Elisabeth heard Katrien flop down onto the armchair from yesterday while Nathan began to crack open the books to search for some research notes, so she decided to approach the podium in the middle of the floor. Her headache seemed to recede to a pleasant hum as the book flipped open lazily within its barrier and brushed its pages against her hand, which she hadn’t realized had gotten so close.

“Is that safe?” Silas said unexpectedly, which also brought Nathan’s concerned stare.

“Yesterday, too,” Nathan said, “How can you be sure that book isn’t up to something?”

“It likely is,” Elisabeth said, feeling oddly disconnected from her body, the pain receding. “It would be stranger for it to not be plotting its escape, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe it likes being imprisoned? I wouldn’t presume what a book likes or dislikes,” Katrien said.

Nathan sputtered. “Really, Miss Katrien, must you go there?”

“Go where? I’m sitting in this chair,” she replied, but she was definitely laughing at him even as she settled down in her chair, adopting an atrocious posture.

“Hm, I think I must be just a little tired,” Elisabeth sighed, drooping toward the Grimoire. “You’d best finish up quickly-”

“It would be more surprising if you weren’t, considering you were swinging around that sword with Katrien. It seems I’d better watch for my head when I’m around you.” Nathan said, and Elisabeth scoffed.

“It’s not enough, though. It’s too bad they stopped letting people practice on demonic constructs after the war ended.”

“You want to fight a demonic construct? Are you out of your mind?” Nathan said. “Those are being made from the otherworld energy stored in these books escaping and materializing as an uncontrolled type of demon, mirroring the demon that the spells originate from. It’s the same as fighting a demon with an iron stick.”

“Yes, but it is part of our duties,” She muttered. “...Is it cruel, to hold such a thing in chains for eternity? I wonder…”

“They might be copies, but they are not fully intelligent ones or we would have already been overtaken,” he said dryly, “Considering the sheer number of books we have in all these libraries, now.”

She felt the ache in her joints even as the pain in her head faded, and was overcome with the urge to finally look at the Grimoire of eyes, to see the tomes around her, to see the stained glass in this part of the library that contributed to their sealing with their iron drugged glass. Her hand twitched to her head and slipped under the sash.

“What are you doing?” Katrien said in alarm, “Even if your head doesn’t hurt now, it’s still not good to-”

She raised the blindfold from her eyes and looked, dazed, upon the Grimoire whose unchained blindings gleamed with swirling red eyes that seemed to stare straight into her eyes but shut immediately after as if shocked by the contact. Elisabeth blinked and looked up toward the stained windows, the books on the wall, that painting-the director’s scream as she stared into the construct’s face right before it cut- something- her eyes hurt her arms hurt, it was all warm but- before the director-the director?-

“-sabeth! Hey! Elisabeth!” the director’s- no it was a man’s- voice cut through, and she opened her eyes into the darkness. It was warm. “Elisabeth? Are you there? Do you know where you are?”

“...It’s dark.”

“Katrien put back on the blindfold thing- man, no wonder you were wearing it. You passed out for a second or something! She caught you before you fell onto the pedestal, and your eyes were moving but it didn’t seem like you were seeing anything-

“I’m sorry for the trouble,” Elisabeth said, and indeed she now felt that Katrien had lent her entire torso for Elisabeth to rest on. She tried to stand but found her legs had decided to become unresponsive.

“Sorry? Why are you sorry? Katrien-” Nathan said.

“Why did you try to look?” Katrien said from below her. She could feel her warm breath move her hair and tried to remember.

“I wanted to,” was all she could offer.

“Why did you want to?”

There was a pause as Elisabeth tried to figure it out, where she could feel Nathan fidgeting awkwardly.

“Is it strange for me to want to see what something looks like?” She finally said, “I don’t often get the opportunity to.”

Why did she feel so weak? She hadn’t done anything. She was always weak. She was tired of that too.

She tried to stand again, and Katrien half lifted her to standing. Planting her arm on Katrien’s shoulder, she managed to drag herself to the dusty armchair and sit down so that her back was resting on the edge of the seat, on the floor.

Nathan was still dithering.

“Finish,” she growled at him, and he jumped and started going through the shelves again.

As he finally started trying to find whatever he was looking for, Silas, that statue of a demon, decided to inspect the Grimoire of Eyes. How did she know? Her headache increased and the tome started muttering about demon propriety.

She rubbed at her eyes, where it ached behind them, and felt a hand rest on her head.

“Sorry. Do you mind?” Katrien said, “I find head massages help with headaches.”

“Go for it,” she grumbled, “can’t hurt.”

So the woman pressed her fingers into her scalp, and it did feel quite pleasant. The director did this for her, too, when she was younger. It was the same strange combination of something that ached and something pleasant right next to each other.

“Once you feel better, we can spar even after class,” Katrien muttered even softer than usual. “But you should rest, first.”

Elisabeth didn’t respond but pressed her face into Katrien’s leg where it hurt.

She just wanted the day to be over.

* * *

  
Elisabeth paused her reading- well, the Grimoire was more reading to her- to an apprentice approaching her, and swept the tome under the desk.

“What is it?”

“Letters from the director came in, as well as one for you,” Dean said. “...Although I suppose you can’t read it.”

She sighed. “Just give it here.” And reached out her arm expectantly.

When nothing hit her hand, she tilted her head and frowned. “Is something the problem?”

“What? I’m giving it to you.”

The annoying thing was she couldn’t tell if Dean was aggravating on purpose or by accident.

“Set it on the desk, please.”

There was a pause before there was the slide of paper on wood and Elisabeth waited.

“Should I read it for you? I mean-”

“No, it’s okay. You must have better things to do, no? Like inspecting the new returns for defects or seal breakage.”

“...Right.”

And the apprentice sighed and left so Elisabeth felt around until she picked up the envelope from the director, excited despite herself.

She unstuck the wax seal and unfolded the letter, running her fingers over the ridges the director had drawn onto it and reading it through the physical alphabet the director had forced her into learning when she was still young enough to think it was the worst.

At least it meant that pretty much no one could read her mail.

It was just the standard letter of asking how she was doing and telling her that the capital was even more full of morons than usual. Unfortunately, it seemed that the director would be stuck there longer than expected, because of some problems with the libraries even farther from the capital than she was. It ended with the director asking for her to make sure that the protections were fully in place and that the active-duty warders weren’t slacking.

Fat chance of that. A lot of them didn’t like her because she helped manage the library when she hadn’t even passed the warder’s initiation. Which she was fixing now, at least.

Why did it smell like ethereal combustion?

She stood up from the desk to make sure a book hadn’t decided to go on a rampage or something when a voice sounded from far too close.

“I see you’re feeling better,” Nathan said.

She flinched and cursed. “How in the Sage’s hairy as-”

“Woah, woah! I just used some magic to sneak up on you! Sorry!”

She looked around for Silas and only saw a white cat. Which meant the cat was probably Silas.

“What are the limits of your damned magic anyway?” she grumbled. “I don’t understand it at all. Seems very hand-wavy to me, even though everyone and their mother seems to have written a theory book on it.”

She hated that section. The books there didn’t talk much and they were so heavy.

“Well-” Nathan paused. “I don’t really think you want me to start lecturing on magical theory right now, do you?”

“Maybe later.”

He sighed. “I thought so.”

Elisabeth put the letter away into a pocket of her skirt so that she could save it with all the other letters from the director.

“Did you need to get another book?” she asked, taking the keys to the atrium out.

“Ah- well, sort of, but I also just wanted to chat with you.”

She blinked. “About?”

Nathan fidgeted. “Well, nothing in particular- maybe what you do for fun, or your interests. That type of thing.”

Considering how Nathan and Katrien seemed to get along fine, maybe it was her that reduced Nathan to an awkward mess? That was strange.

Her interests were mostly reading books, knitting sweaters for the director, and more recently swinging a sword but talking about any of those randomly felt awkward, too.

“How about we go to the atrium, and you can tell me about your theory,” Elisabeth said, “And I’ll tell you what the Grimoires gossip about the other sorcerers that have come here.”

“Oh dear,” he said. “Do all the libraries gossip about the sorcerers that come here?”

She smiled at him. “The grimoires you take to your room mostly complain about the amount of white cat hair on...everything. I didn’t know demon cats could shed.”

Nathan turned faintly pink, which was interesting.

“Ah, also, the sorcerer of flowers is notoriously dramatic. I believe he cried when a grimoire managed to serenade his love before he got to? That grimoire quite enjoyed itself.”

Nathan winced.

“How about I tell you about this theory first, about how the dimensions are linked together by the trace amount we link to each other…and-”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm I realize I messed up warder and warden sorry about that. I think it's supposed to be Warden : p  
> I outlined this entire fic and consequently became a diehard outliner ahaaaaaa
> 
> **updates this instead of more popular fics in progress**
> 
> Hm, it's just too much energy to get beta'd sometimes so I can update that one because sometimes getting beta'd is frustrating  
> not really the edits, but other stuff  
> Although I'm ahead of my beta in editing by about 5k-8k?  
> urgh
> 
> this fic isn't beta'd so feel free to point out stuff I missed! I do edit stuff but my eyes skip over stuff sometimes @_@


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